Measles, a viral infection characterized by a rash and malaise, can become a complicated case that involves meningitis (inflammation of the tissues surrounding the brain) or multi-organ involvement. Death can and does occur, luckily, no one has died of it in the United States. Still, about a quarter of a million children die from it in under-served parts of the world where vaccine and/or treatment for measles is not available.
You may be asking yourself what the big deal is about 131 cases in a country of over 300 million. The real answer is that 131 is likely an underestimate of the true number reported to the health departments all over the country. Other cases may go unrecognized. People who are immune-compromised or sick with other conditions may develop measles and not know it. They may die from it and not know it. Other than the rash, there are few other ways to recognize it beyond lab tests that may take too long or be to costly to perform. Also, because measles is so rare, few physicians may recognize it on symptoms alone.
The other reason why this is a big deal is that measles is perfectly vaccine preventable. In the United States of America, in 2008, there should be no cases of measles. Living for your faith and beliefs is one thing; dying because of them is another. The worst offenders in the non-vaccination campaign are misinformed individuals who, with all the evidence to the contrary in peer-reviewed study after peer-reviewed study, still believe that vaccines cause diseases like autism or auto-immune conditions. The truth to this is that they might cause something, but the overwhelming evidence is that they don't. So slacking on measles means that they have been slacking in other vaccines, and that's a scary proposition.
